


Oil & Water

by Enkida



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Blood, Comedy, Donuts, F/M, Gore, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:15:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7066678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enkida/pseuds/Enkida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yuffie, Cloud, Land Worms and donuts. Oh, and of course the sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cloud's Introspection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seventhe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/gifts).



> This was a birthday gift for seventhe. Woo! Finally uncensored, all ye who couldn't find the Livejournal entry with the naughty bits. This was done on request in under 24 hours. I am still absurdly proud of myself for being able to create donut porn in that timeframe.

Cloud hunched over the fire pit, rubbing his hands together for warmth. A chill breeze whipped across his ear, and he pulled his collar further up around his neck, cursing his bad luck. _Of course_ Reeve would happen to have an urgent delivery that needed to get to the Gold Saucer "yesterday." _Of course_ the lift would be out of commission, leaving the dusty, ill-used road that wound through Corel's desert as the only way into the famed resort casino. And _of course_ Fenrir would have to choose today, of all days, to overheat while attempting to navigate through the shifting desert sands.

"Why me?" Cloud groaned into the cool night air. He shivered and drew even closer to the fire, trying to extract what warmth he could from it.

By day, Corel's desert was a nightmare of unbearable heat and haze. Most travellers weren't suicidal enough to try using it to gain entry to the Saucer. If the heat didn't fell hapless travellers first, the monsters that roamed the desert sands unchecked would be more than happy to.

Cloud Strife, however, wasn't most travellers. The monsters were hardly an issue - if he was honest, there wasn't much of anything that lived and breathed on the planet that could truly bother him - nor was the thought of a suicidal mission. The latter was more like an old friend that kept eluding his attempts at a greeting, no matter how much he chased after him. No - Cloud Strife's delivery service, no matter how harrowing or impossible the mission might seem, always managed to get the job done - and on time, too.

At least it had, until that afternoon. That was the moment that Cloud's business partner, otherwise known as Fenrir, decided that it was not quite as resilient to the desert's elements as its rider and died a slow, stuttering death to the unquenchable heat.

That had been more than three hours ago. The sun had set all too quickly, and Cloud finally had to abandon his attempt to ferry both himself and his recalcitrant motorcycle to the Golden Saucer, which loomed maddeningly near in the sky. He was settled now at the side of the road, trying to keep his extremities warm with the sorry excuse for a campfire that he was maintaining, with little more than a few tattered missives, some liberally splashed gasoline from said motorcycle, and a few irregularly cast fire spells.

No one had ever told him the desert was cold at night. Trying to still the chattering of his teeth, Cloud pulled the collar of his overcoat up a little higher and hunkered closer to the pathetic fire.

_Can my life possibly get any worse than this?_ he thought to himself bitterly. He briefly toyed with the idea of settling down, making a home in Edge with Tifa, as she'd so obviously wanted - before discarding the idea almost immediately. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his childhood "friend" - he hid a grimace at that - but her choice of occupation had left him wanting. No, not for drinks - even he wasn't so far gone as to turn down free access to alcohol when it appeared - rather, her unexpected stint acting as Edge's unofficial orphanage. Back at the Seventh Heaven the kids were all over the place, swarming in and out of the bar like clusters of gnats, always poking and prodding and asking questions with their wide, innocent eyes. They just never _shut up_. Tifa would remind him with her infinite patience that it was because he was a hero, that he'd saved the world _twice over_ already, but really, sometimes, all he wanted was a little peace and quiet. A further moment of morose introspection - what else was there to do out in the middle of Corel desert, Nowhere - brought him to the conclusion that his bias might have been the result of his own stunted childhood.

Not that it really mattered in the end. He still couldn't stand being around the little punks for extended periods of time.

The chill evening breeze swirled violently, ruffling Cloud's hair. It almost felt like a cool, stinging slap against his skin. He winced, groaning. That was the other part of his so-called life that he would change if he could - his attachment to Aeris. Not that he didn't appreciate the lovely, pure-hearted Cetra - just, she was dead. It was more than a little strange to feel her spirit "tracking" him across the entire world, even four years after the fact. He'd really thought he'd loved her, at least at the beginning of their brief time together. That was before his world had been shattered, broken apart, and he'd learned that he was nothing more than a failure, a loser at his worst and a mere shadow of her former boyfriend at his best. Somehow he'd managed to pull it together, long enough to save the world multiple times over, at least, but it was getting progressively harder to feel comfortable with the feeling of being _watched_ constantly. It was a little bit like having his mother looking over his shoulder all the time.

On the plus side of things, he could always attribute any aberrant behaviour on his part to Zack's poor upbringing.

Cloud let out a hollow laugh. He supposed he was one of the luckiest men in the world. There was a beautiful woman waiting for him back at Edge - surrounded by cheerful living memories of a time of his life, when it had been truly his _own,_ that was so painful that he'd rather it remain forgotten. But he also had his rootless freedom as a vagrant, chained to the world only by the constant vigilance and concern of a woman long dead.

A distant roar shook Cloud out of his thoughts; the fire was dying, and absently he waved a hand at the pit, renewing the fire spell that kept away the chill of the night air. His brow furrowed; strange, that one of the desert's many creatures would be roaming the sands so late at night. Most of the things large enough to make a sound that would carry so far required the heat of the sun to function.

The roar echoed across the sands once more, definitely closer this time, and Cloud stood with a grim expression. It seemed like his charmed luck was holding out once more. Reaching over Fenrir, he quickly freed his sword from the motorcycle's confines and brandished it into the darkened night. He was rewarded with another echoing roar, this one near enough to cause the ground to shake as vibrations travelled across the sand dunes.

An unexpected streak of fire illuminated the desert, and Cloud squinted and winced as he recognized the source of the noise.

"A Land Worm? You've got to be kidding me," he groused to himself. "What the hell is it doing out this late at night?"

The answer came to him as another brilliant flash of light illuminated the desert, doing little to waylay the rampaging monster but providing an adequate beacon to silhouette the frantic figure that was its source.

"Why do I even ask?" Cloud groaned as he set out at a run towards the disturbance.


	2. Yuffie's Mistake

She didn't mean for it to happen. Honestly. She'd told the others that she was trying to reform, and she'd really meant it at the time. It wasn't that she lacked money, oh no - the WRO paid her handsomely enough, even if she didn't want the job - it was just that some impulses were too hard to curb. They were ingrained into the very fibre of her being. Tradition, even.

Yeah, that was it. It'd be dishonouring tradition to ignore such a ripe opportunity when it presented itself. Never mind that she'd been specifically warned against indulging. "Just a boring little vacation," she'd claimed it would be. Reeve had looked at her with the same amount of faith and conviction that he held when Reno had brazenly declared that he didn't use hair gel to style his coif.

"Public face of the WRO my butt!" Yuffie groused as she scrambled across the sand, panting. She was head of the Intelligence Division, for cryin' out loud! And for gawd's sake, you couldn't get much "intelligence" done if everyone knew what your job was. Still, she'd waved off Reeve's concerns as unnecessary and promised that she'd be good - relatively speaking - while haring off to the Gold Saucer for her much-needed vacation.

So she'd unexpectedly run out of tokens after losing track of how many she'd dropped on G-Biking. Was it her fault that the game was so addictive? Yuffie squinted enviously as visions of Fenrir sped through her head. Boy howdy, now there's something I'd like to steal, she thought with a dazed grin as a bit of drool pooled at the edge of her mouth. Still, even as head of the Intelligence Division, her salary wasn't nearly pulling in enough to be able to afford a custom job of Fenrir's quality for her own. Screw Fenrir, she thought absently as she sprinted her way across the darkened sands. I'd name mine Leviathan!

It had been with great reluctance that Yuffie had found herself forced to retire - not to her hotel room, as she'd forgotten to secure herself one of those - to the cafeteria for a bite to eat after a marathon 18-hour-session in Wonder Square. Penniless, and more importantly tokenless, she'd eyed the glazed donuts behind the glass-ensconced case with more than a little longing. Her stomach had quite emphatically agreed with the decision - after all, a bag of over-salted ChocoCrisps could only take a girl so far.

The proprietors of the establishment had been somewhat less understanding when they'd finally caught up to her, mouth stuffed with delicious, sugary, crisply-iced donuts as she tried to flee down one of the transportation tubes. So much for Dio's open-armed welcome; apparently that sort of star power was reserved only for Cloud. She'd been chuted down to the ruined remains of the mining town below, and told to not bother trying to find her way back inside.

Normally, such a thing would be considered a death sentence to gamblers foolish enough to cross the Gold Saucer's bouncers. Fortunately, Yuffie was not normal, nor was it her first (or second, or even twenty-fifth) time being condemned to a sure, but embarrassingly slow and indirect death. It was late afternoon when she'd been unceremoniously dumped outside, and the blistering heat of the day had died out to a more manageable warm Costa-del-Sol burn. She'd set out into the desert almost immediately with good spirits, relatively good health and a full stomach, thanks to the number of donuts she'd managed to snitch before she could be caught.

Unfortunately, twilight descended much more quickly than Yuffie had expected, and along with the twilight had come the mind-numbing cold. It was almost as bad as vacationing in Icicle Town when the sun set, and finally she'd admitted defeat, searching for the first available shelter she could find to warm up in.

Was it her fault that the only available shelter in the desert happened to be one lonely little rock formation jutting out of the shifting sands? Could she really have been expected to know that said rock formation was actually the nesting lair for a surly, hibernating Land Worm?

The indignant roar behind her assured her that it was. Yuffie let out a small yelp and picked up her speed. At least the cold was slowing the thing down, not that it mattered when it was nearly half the size of the Golden Saucer. Yuffie didn't think of herself as a pessimist, but this was beginning to border on ridiculous. She was on vacation. Ninjas didn't get eaten by sandworms in the middle of the desert while they were on vacation. Hell, ninjas didn't get eaten by sandworms, period.

The incensed worm behind her begged to differ, crashing its massive, gaping jaw into the sand near her feet with another screeching growl. Desperate, she called on her flame attack - she hadn't used that one since the days that she'd taken to camping in the forests of Junon. It wasn't a very powerful attack, but it was widespread, it was quick, and it would hopefully keep that worm from turning her into its own special version of a midnight snack.

The worm shook off the licking flames, only momentarily stunned, and then roared its disapproval before diving for her once more.

Damn those donuts, Yuffie cursed silently. May the fires of the Da Chao rain on their creators forever. Ooh, but I hope it leaves the production factories alone, because they really are quite delicious...

Another roar and another near-death-experience had Yuffie desperately blowing another flash of flames across the sand in the hopes that it would buy her some time. Boy, if this keeps up, I'm gonna have to get All-Creation on this thing, she thought absently as she scrambled over another dune. A flicker of light caught her attention; well, a flicker that she hadn't been causing, at least.

She squinted, her legs still pumping even as she slipped and slid down the sandy hill. Was that - it was! "A campfire! Praise Leviathan!" Yuffie yelled, filled with a sudden burst of energy. There seemed to be a small, dark figure moving away from the camp. Yuffie couldn't complain; more targets meant more chance for her to escape her fate as worm bait. She'd figure out who'd generously offered to get eaten in her place and send his or her family a plaque to honour their noble sacrifice when she got back to headquarters.

The figure, Yuffie noticed as she neared the fire, wasn't running away from the disturbance. In fact, if she squinted, it actually looked like it was coming closer to them. She thought she saw the flash of a blade, and she squinted again.

"Oh man, don't tell me..." she choked out as the figure broke into a run. But it was; if the massive size of the stranger's sword hadn't given it away, the unmistakable shape of spikes on his head would've.

"Thanks, Spike! I'll, uh -" she huffed, somewhat out of breath as the Land Worm burst out of the ground behind her and sent her tumbling head over heels - "... let you take it from here, okay?"

The figure in question didn't seem to pay her hollered greeting any attention; he was already airborne, his humongous sword flashing in an impossibly graceful whitish-blue arc as he whirled it through the air above his head.

Yuffie came to a stop, twisting around to watch the silent figure in action. It always was a bit of a rush to watch Cloud performing an Omnislash, so long as you weren't on the receiving end of it. His sword split apart, circling the writing Land Worm like a ring of malevolent falling stars. And then he was flying, for lack of a better word, streaking back and forth as he hacked at the impossibly huge worm, severing it into pieces with clean, clinical, precise strikes. He landed with a thump a few feet away from her, and Yuffie cringed and dodged as the pieces of his sword planted themselves into the ground around her.

Perfect, Yuffie thought with a little sigh, secretly jealous of Cloud's ability to cut his way through anything, anytime. There was a deafening silence, and then a low whistle of wind as the now-decapitated body of the Land Worm slowly collapsed, meeting the ground with a thunderous crack. Almost in slow motion, Yuffie watched as the tidal wave of sand, blood and more than a few worm guts rose up blast them. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face away from the flying detritus. When the wind finally died out, she blinked and rubbed the crust from her eyes, peering cautiously into the dark night. The blast had extinguished Cloud's fire, and tentatively, she lit a small fire spell of her own, keeping the orb of flame whirling in her palm.

Cloud stood stock-still, surrounded by the multiple pieces of his sword. His eyes were on her, glowing faintly in the darkness, and he looked anything but happy to see her again.

This might have been due to the fact that he, his swords, and even his motorcycle were now covered by a good, fingernail-thick layer of sand, dirt and worm innards. Even his normally-blonde hair was looking a decided shade of pink in the firelight.

"Uhh... oops?" Yuffie offered cautiously with a cocky grin.

If anything, Cloud's dark glare turned black at her greeting.


	3. Dinner and Conversation

Cloud eyed the figure seated across the fire warily. She was puttering about, doing something, _god knew what,_ to the bits of worm carcass near them. Whatever it was, it didn't sound pleasant. He was certain they were both going to smell even more wonderful in the morning than they did right now. As if that wasn't enough, Omnislashing said Land Worm and then maintaining his pathetic excuse for a campfire with a constant feed of magic energy was leaving him feeling more drained than usual. Exasperated, he let the fire, which had been burning on nothing but air, flicker out and glared at Yuffie. She let out a squawk of indignation at being dropped into darkness, but he could care less - with his mako-enhanced vision, he could see her just as clearly as if she'd been standing in broad daylight.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked quietly.

"Start the fire again! Come on, start it, start it!" Yuffie squealed.

Cloud's glare turned incredulous. "You're afraid of the dark?"

"No, I'm afraid I'm going trip on something squishy and land face-first in something even squishier! Now turn on the damn lights, Spike!" Yuffie glared furiously at what she thought was him, but was actually just a lump of segmented land worm dangling slightly off to his right. Cloud sighed and re-lit the fire spell. The cold had retreated, thankfully, due to the steaming quantities of flesh and blood surrounding them, but the latent heat of the slain worm wouldn't last them through the night. He'd been hoping to conserve at least a little of his magic energy for the morning - Cloud was under no illusions that Yuffie would offer to power the fire herself - but she insisted that he keep the fire burning.

"Start it up again yourself," he told her finally, relaxing into the slightly-moist, steaming sand surrounding them.

"Well I would if I could _see anything,_ " she hissed as she cautiously groped her way back towards the sound of his voice. Her arms were heavily laden with suspicious-looking chunks; with a sigh, Cloud relented and relit the fire-pit with a wave.

"Thanks!" Yuffie beamed at him, depositing her rather large pile of grisly pap next to their makeshift fire pit. Picking out a few fleshy pieces of fat and skin, she threw it into the magical fire, where it lit up with a sizzle. "Alright, you can let it go now," she said after a moment, satisfied that the fat had caught.

Mildly surprised, Cloud released the spell as the chunks of worm meat and fat began to burn, filling the air with a pungent and not particularly appetizing smell. Still, it was marginally better than holding the fire alight with force of will alone, and much better than shivering to death in the cold. "Why didn't I think of that?" he murmured as a piece of fat popped loudly in the fire.

"Simple! Three years of wilderness living!" Yuffie quipped with a grin. " _Waste not, want not,_ " she chanted. Then her nose wrinkled. "Or was it _steal lot, want not...?_ "

Cloud ignored her rambling and half-heartedly kicked some sand at her to get her attention.

"Hey!" Yuffie yelled, scrubbing at her shins. "What was that for?"

"What are you doing out here?" he asked her.

"Getting chased by a Land Worm, duh!" she answered with a roll of her eyes. Cloud sighed; it was a soft sound, but it signalled the incipient end to his relatively good temper. Actually to be perfectly honest, he never had a good temper, ever, but at least it wasn't a bad temper at the current moment. From the calculating look on Yuffie's face, he could tell that she realized things could quickly change if she didn't start answering his questions seriously.

"Actually, I was at the Gold Saucer, enjoying my vacation from Reeve, that slave driver, but I sorta miscalculated and, well, spentallofmytokensplayingG-Bike," she finished in a rush.

Cloud blinked slowly and tried to piece together what she'd said, nodding to himself as he worked it out. "The real thing's better," he added after a moment of contemplation.

Yuffie's sheepish grin melted abruptly into a petulant scowl. "Well _excuuuuuse me,_ but not everyone can afford that custom monster you call a bike!" She folded her arms and blew a chunk of hair out of her face huffily.

"Not my problem," Cloud said vaguely. "So then you tried to steal something and they kicked you out?" he concluded.

"Well, I was hungry, and they were _really good_ donuts!" Yuffie's pout was telling; he really didn't need to know the details of her story and decided to leave it at that. Well, except for one thing that was bothering him...

"I thought ninjas weren't supposed to get caught."

Yuffie's face screwed together comically as she let out a stream of Wutainese expletives that probably meant something along the lines of a very descriptive version of "stuff it."

"I'm on my way to the Gold Saucer," Cloud told her when it seemed she'd exhausted her native vocabulary. Yuffie's face lit up with curiosity.

"Oh, so like, you got another job? What're you delivering this time?" she asked eagerly.

"Nothing you'd be interested in," Cloud told her abruptly, his danger sense jangling loudly at the look on her face. "I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning." He paused, waiting until he was sure she was listening to him. "You're not coming with me."

Yuffie's mouth fell open. "Hey, who said I wanted to come with you anyhow?" she sputtered indignantly.

"Good, then we're clear," he answered, throwing himself onto the sand and rolling onto his stomach. It wasn't a particularly comfortable position, and he was sure he was getting sand up his nostrils, but his materia was securely tucked into the pouch below his belt. There was no way Yuffie was going to be able to make a grab for it without rolling him over and dropping his pants first. He squeezed his eyes shut and attempted to find sleep.

"Gee, thanks a bunch Mister Manners." Her voice wafted over his head, clearly annoyed, although that was most likely at her realization of where he'd hidden his materia.

Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Go to sleep, Yuffie."

There was a moment of blessed silence, and then he winced as she began talking. _Again._

"I can't! I'm _hungry!_ "

Cloud turned his head slightly and buried his nose into the sand. It smelled like stale blood and he winced and shifted uncomfortably. "So find something to eat," he mumbled, irritated. Just then, his stomach decided to pitch in and join their conversation. It gurgled loudly.

"See? You're hungry too!" Her whine was becoming a little shrill.

"I don't have anything to eat, Yuffie," Cloud finally said, cracking an eye open to give her an exasperated stare. "Besides, your stomach isn't my problem."

Yuffie glared at him, her eyebrows drawing together. "But your stomach is! You're just as hungry as me, c'mon, sit up and admit it!"

"You can't eat materia," was his muffled reply. He wasn't really expecting it to work; Yuffie was nothing if not annoyingly persistent. Still, he was surprised when she didn't reply; ears straining, he heard her shuffling around their makeshift camp. Curiosity began to gnaw at him; pushing it down, he resolved to ignore her and concentrated on catching what little sleep he could. There was a soft curse and a few muffled thumps. After a few further moments of quiet, a sizzling sound filled the air. Unable to help himself, Cloud cracked an eye open. "What're you doing?"

"Making dinner!" Yuffie said, grinning widely as she poked at the fire with her weapon.

Cloud frowned. Finally, with a sigh of defeat, he sat up. "You have food?" he asked cautiously, almost afraid of what she was going to demand in return for whatever edible thing she was hiding. His stomach gave another growl of encouragement, and he realized that he would probably willingly submit to blackmail at that point for a meal of any kind.

Yuffie gave him a quick nod, then withdrew her weapon from the fire and blew on it. His face contorted in disgust as he realized that she hadn't been poking at the fire, but rather cooking a piece of unfortunate Land Worm on the end of her shuriken.

"You've got to be joking," he said as she held it out to him.

"Hey, it's better than nothing, right?"

Cloud wasn't quite sure he agreed with that logic. Then again, he hadn't had anything but a strong cup of coffee for breakfast. The comforts of the small diner he'd stopped in that morning seemed a lifetime away at that moment. After a brief struggle, his shoulders dropped and he held out his hand. "Fine, give it here." He pulled the roasted chunk of flesh from the weapon, wincing a little as it coated his fingers in a thick layer of grease, and cautiously brought it to his mouth. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and bit into it, chewing slowly.

The texture of the meat was tough and rubbery. The aroma was also not particularly appetizing, but thanks to Yuffie's worm fat-fuel mixture for the fire he'd grown relatively inured to the smell. Still, it was solid food, and as long as he didn't dwell too much on the fact that he was eating a worm, it wasn't really all that bad. He chewed one final time and managed to swallow without gagging. Finally he opened his eyes and started as he found Yuffie on her hands and knees before him, scrutinizing his face with a look of disbelief.

"Oh my gawd, you actually ate it!" she blurted out.

Cloud felt his expression dropping into a scowl. "Glad to be your guinea pig," he grumbled.

Grinning apologetically, Yuffie backed off and speared another piece of meat onto the end of her shuriken. "Thanks for testing it out. You want any more?" She stuck a few more pieces onto the weapon at his curt nod before shoving it back into the fire. There were a few moments of comfortable silence, before Yuffie inevitably opened her mouth once more.

"You don't talk much, do you."

Cloud levelled her with a cool look, but decided to keep his mouth shut for the moment, as she was technically still the one holding onto their dinner.

"Y'know, you could at least pretend to make an effort here. I'm trying to be social." When he didn't answer her, her mild pout deepened into a real frown. "You do know that you don't have to be as prickly as your hair, right?"

To hell with dinner, Cloud was quickly remembering why exactly he didn't enjoy travelling with Yuffie. It was compounded by the fact that none of their other companions were there to distract her.

"You're a motor mouth," he told her tersely. "Maybe I don't want to be friendly with other people."

This statement was met with an eye roll and a loud snort. "Yeah, well it's not doing anything for your reputation, lemmie tell you. If you wanna be popular, you got to work at it like I do!"

"You're popular? Is that why you got thrown out of the Gold Saucer?" he shot back.

"Oh please, like anything in this desert could kill the White Rose of Wutai," Yuffie scoffed. She checked herself and waved a hand at him. "Present company excluded," she added insincerely. "Besides, you're missing the point here. We're talking about you, not me! Don't you want to improve your public image? I mean don't you get tired of using all those ellipsis's after a while?"

Cloud shrugged as she pulled her shuriken out of the fire and waved another piece of nearly-burnt meat at him. "I don't really care if I'm well-liked or not." He blew on the quivering piece of flesh and then directed a pointed look towards her. "As long as I can still manage to beat the crap out of anyone who annoys me, I'm satisfied with my life." Well, that wasn't exactly what he was thinking earlier that evening, but Yuffie's insistent heckling always brought out the best in him. He lifted an eyebrow, daring her to make a comment.

Yuffie huffed and shrugged, busying herself with her makeshift dinner instead of answering him, and Cloud felt a small surge of triumph at her implied capitulation. Maybe he'd make it out of this evening camping with Yuffie unscathed after all.


	4. Morale Boosting

"So why aren't you holed up in Edge making kids of your own with Tifa?"

Cloud nearly spit out the chunk of meat that had lodged in his throat. When he was done coughing, he considered glaring at Yuffie but gave up after a moment's consideration. It was just too much effort to keep the scowl her presence drew out permanently plastered across his face.

"It's none of your business. Lay off it, Yuffie."

"Oh, I haven't even started laying it on yet!" Yuffie told him gleefully, leaning forward with a terrifying glint in her eye. "Is it 'cause you're still in love with Aeris?"

He winced at the mention of her name, but thankfully the breeze didn't pick up. It seemed Yuffie's presence was considered enough of "connection" to the rest of the world that she was leaving him alone for the moment. That, or Yuffie's powers of annoyance were extending to mystical proportions.

"No," he decided to answer her honestly. Perhaps answering her questions bluntly would kill her curiosity more quickly. "It's not because of Aeris. It's just that Tifa... she..." He stopped, trying to find a way to diplomatically form the rest of his sentence.

Yuffie stepped into fill the blank. "...her boobs are too big? Because y'know I totally heard there's this new operation you can get that would -"

"It's not about Tifa's chest!" Cloud cut her off, reddening slightly. He grimaced and rubbed his forehead, trying to stall the headache that was forming behind his eyes. "It's the kids."

"Marlene and Denzel?" Yuffie frowned. "I thought you liked them." Her frown deepened. "Oh boy, y'know, you better not let Barret hear you talkin' like that. He'll kick your ass -"

"I do like them," Cloud said hastily. Not that he actually feared the repercussions if wind of this conversation should ever reach Barret's ears. No, it just that he didn't want to have to face the possibility of sitting down to have a heart-to-heart with a tearful Barret, who was currently trying to get in touch with his "feminine" side - an effort which Tifa had revealed to Cloud with her full approval and more than one weighted look in his direction.

"At least, I like Marlene." Yuffie peered at him. "... and Denzel," he managed to say. "But it's more than just those two. They..." He gestured helplessly at the air before him. "They're _everywhere,_ " he finally said, exasperated. "I don't want a big family. I don't even know if I want _kids._ But Tifa already has _both._ "

Yuffie snorted indelicately. "See, that's your problem. You're getting all bent out of shape trying to figure out how to treat them as _children._ What you fail to realize is that they're a viable workforce at your beck and call!" She grinned cheekily at him. "I mean, come on, they worship the ground you walk on! All you have to do is drop a word or two here and there, and they'd be running this delivery business for you with practically no overhead!"

Cloud stared at Yuffie, who raised an eyebrow. "What?" she asked defensively.

"I'm not going to turn Tifa's orphanage into a _sweatshop,_ " he finally ground out.

"Your loss," Yuffie shrugged. She popped a piece of meat into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "So..." - here she swallowed noisily - "What you really mean is you don't like kids." A pause. "Umm... isn't that kind of a problem, what with Tifa running the orphanage and all?"

He said nothing, simply ducking his head in shame. He knew Tifa was good to him; he knew she deserved better than his constant evasiveness and stunted emotional growth. But still -

"I bet it's 'cause you were messed up as a kid." Yuffie stared at him intently, and then began to nod to herself. "Yep, it's the hair. And that spacey look you're always getting on your face. Couldn't have been a good combination. The other kids made fun of you, right?"

He sunk into a morose silence.

"Wait, you mean I'm right? You were the town nerd? The buck-toothed kid? The one everyone makes fun of?"

More silence.

"YES! Reeve owes me 20 gil now! Oh, uh, I probably shouldn'tve said that out loud, huh? Oh well!"

Cloud threw the last of his meal into the fire disgustedly. "Thanks, Yuffie. Thank you so much for bringing it up." He flopped backwards into the sand and pointedly turned his back towards her, scowling.

"Oh, come on, Spike," Yuffie told him with a laugh. "You need to lighten up. Don't you know everyone had a messed up childhood?"

Cloud remained silent, but he did roll onto his back and peer at Yuffie from the corner of his eye.

She was smirking at him, waving a piece of limpid worm meat in his direction as she spoke. "I mean come on! First with Shinra, then the Wutainese war? And then Sephiroth, and Meteor? Oh, and don't forget the three stooges or Deep Ground, right?" She smirked at him. "I don't think any kid's going to be normal for the next decade or so. We're all a little crazy in the head. It's practically normal!"

That wasn't making him feel better, though what she was saying did make a twisted kind of sense. If the world was intrinsically fucked up, it was no wonder it produced fucked up people like himself. Or better yet, Yuffie. Yep, there wasn't really a better definition of Fucked Up than a Wutainese Princess who made her living by thieving and suffered delusions of grandeur regularly. Cloud sat up, somewhat mollified by the comparison. At least he had the mother of all excuses for his own anti-social behaviour. Yuffie was just certifiably disturbed from birth.

"Besides, we did save the world... how many times was it now? Three? Four? I kinda lost count after that whole Weiss thing."

Uncharacteristically, Cloud felt prompted to agree. "That's it. That's really it," he admitted, unable to keep the ire from bubbling out of him. "That's why I don't want to be famous or popular or even _social._ Every time something goes wrong, they call me. _Cloud, the world needs saving! Cloud, Sephiroth's back, could you kill him again? Cloud, we need you to cure Geostigma! Cloud, some crazy genetically engineered woman with an accent wants to kill you!_ " He swiped a hand through his hair and let out a low groan. "I mean, _shit_. Don't these people realize a guy can get tired of saving the world after a while? All I really wanted out of life was a cold beer, a fast car, a nice looking girlfriend and a place to put my feet up."

Yuffie peered at him unsympathetically. "Hey Cloud, y'know, three out of four isn't all that bad." She sniffed. "Besides, technically speaking, _you_ didn't save the world that last time. That was all Vincent."

Cloud grunted irately; if one listened closely, the noise might have sounded suspiciously like "I could've Omnislashed that." Being compared to a guy who was technically dead and almost forty years his senior wasn't exactly good for his self-confidence.

"But y'know, Cloud, it's not like running away will help with anything. Take it from the master," she said easily, thumbing her chest. "No matter how hard I try, Reeve _always_ finds me."

Cloud scowled at her. "Who said I was running away? Just because I don't like being who I am doesn't mean I'd shirk my responsibility to the rest of the world." He was stopped by Yuffie's indignant snort.

"Oh please. Look who's all full of himself now," she said caustically. "Maybe I should call you Mopey instead of Spike, because you aren't fooling anyone!" She gestured at the dark outline of Fenrir behind them both. "You got the fast car and the pretty girl, and you could pick up a cold beer at the next truck stop." She pointed at him. "The only reason you don't have a place to put your feet up is 'cause you don't wanna settle. If this delivery business of yours isn't running away, then I'm a golden chocobo." She stuck her tongue out at him. "So quit complain' about how much your life sucks already. Geez, you really just need to pull your big fat spiked head out of your ass."

She finally wound down, breathing heavily through her nostrils, and Cloud stared at her in shock.

"Are you finished yet?" he finally asked after a beat of silence.

Yuffie exhaled heavily. "Yeah, I think so."


	5. Friction

"I don't think I'm the only one with the pent-up issues to deal with here." Cloud quirked an eyebrow at her.

Yuffie winced and looked away from him quickly. She hated it when he did that - when he teased her or traded barbs with her with that sexy little half-smirk on his face. She always thought Cloud looked a bit like a pale, beached fish when he was holding his face carefully slack. Which was most of the time she ever saw him.

But when he let the least bit of animation into his face - a frown, a look of anger, disbelief, or Leviathan forbid, even a smile, it was as though a transformation occurred. A more shocking transformation than Godo turning into the avatar of the Da Chao and coming after her with the heirloom sushi knives. No, when Cloud let expressions seep onto his face, he actually looked _good._ And Yuffie didn't like that. Or more accurately, she liked it too much. She was acutely aware of the fact that Tifa had all but planted the Lockheart Territorial Flag onto Cloud. So, she did the first thing she could think of: she dissembled.

"But we're not talking about me right now, we're talking about you!"

"I don't think we are anymore." His smirk wasn't dropping, damn his dimples. "So what's your problem, Yuffie? Can't steal something you want? Feeling the need to _settle?_ " His face glazed over slightly as his eyes unfocused. "Do you have a crush on Tifa?" That last question sounded almost hopeful.

"Hey! I said this isn't about me! You're the one who's the stunted emotional retard here!" That garnered a reaction. His eyes refocused and he gave her a heated glare.

"Like I said, I'm not running away. I'm just doing my job. I don't even know why we're discussing this." He sighed and rubbed a weary hand through his spiked hair. "Why is it that every time we meet, you end up annoying the piss and vinegar out of me?"

"Aww, Cloud, I don't think anyone could actually do that, but thank you!" Yuffie cooed at him in reply. He slumped even further, and fearing that he'd pull out his dead-fish face again, Yuffie opted for relative honesty. "I do it to cheer you up, stupid! At least when you're with me, you stop acting like a depressed teenager."

Cloud's head lifted at this. "Yuffie, you still _are_ a teenager. How would you even know?"

Yuffie pulled herself up proudly. "Nineteen going on twenty, buster! Besides, fighting to save the world year after year doesn't leave a lot of time for cutting yourself or writing angsty poetry, y'know." She peeked a glance at Cloud cautiously. "Uh, you _do_ know that, right? Please don't tell me you're hiding any poetry in Fenrir right now..."

Cloud's face darkened at her last dig. "Just because I keep a journal doesn't mean that I'm _strange -_ "

"You keep a journal?" Yuffie was already eagerly moving towards Fenrir's storage compartment as she spoke, one goal in mind. Cloud managed to jump to his feet and intercept her before she reached it, grabbing her wrist harshly. Undeterred, she simply twisted around and reached for the lock with her free hand, grinning maniacally. _If I could get my hands on it, that blackmail material would set me up for life!_

Then Yuffie's world was spinning, and she landed with a stinging thump onto the sand. A weight settled over her abdomen and the air wheezed out of her lungs painfully. Blinking to clear her eyes, she realized Cloud had tripped her backwards and was now kneeling on her stomach, her wrist still squeezed uncomfortably in his hand. He leaned in closer, his eyes flashing furiously at her.

 _Oh yeah,_ Yuffie thought to herself, her own eyes slightly crossing at his sudden proximity. Too bad he had worm breath.

"If you ever, _ever,_ try to read my journal, I'll personally make sure that Reeve knows what happened to Cait Sith number eight."

Yuffie stilled her struggles instantly, cold panic washing over her. "You know about that?" she asked in a small voice.

"I know a lot of things," he answered. "Now swear it."

"Relax, Cloud, I was only jok-" her words were cut off with a wheeze as his knee dug into her stomach. Damn it, why did Cloud have to have such bony knees? "ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!" she gasped. "I swear on holy fires of the Da Chao -" The pressure increased and she began talking more quickly. "- uh, and on Aeris' grave -" More pressure. "- my honour as a ninja?" He nearly broke her wrist. "Alright, alright, my reputation as a Materia Hunter!" Cloud relaxed infinitesimally. "... that I won't attempt to read your journal."

"Or steal it, or have anyone else read it to you," Cloud stipulated.

"Or steal it, or have anyone else read it to me," Yuffie finished sullenly.

Cloud released her wrist and rolled off of her.

"Damn it," Yuffie mumbled, causing his eyebrow to shoot upwards.

Cloud stared at her quietly. Then: "Don't tell me you actually _like_ doing that."

 _Having you kneel on me while your face is in licking distance?_ Yuffie thought, but decided that it was probably best to keep it to herself. "Doing what?" she asked nonchalantly, throwing another chunk of dripping worm into the fire.

"Pissing me off," Cloud said. His tone turned unexpectedly harsh. "I don't even know why I put up with you. I saved you from that that worm - which _wasn't my problem,_ by the way - and you can't even offer me a simple thanks or let me enjoy a quiet evening for once. You're just like the rest of them, always demanding something, never leaving me alone! I swear..."

Yuffie tuned him out, watching his jaw work up and down with an almost morbid fascination. Cloud liked to clam up as a general rule of thumb, but if you managed to unhinge his jaw - and she _always_ did - he'd let it flap like Tifa's laundry on a windy day. His cheeks were flushing faintly now, and she wondered what was really working him up. "... that _you_ don't understand me. _Nobody_ understands me. Understand?"

"Non sequitur!" Yuffie automatically answered, and Cloud's face turned red.

"Yuffie!"

"What? _Blah blah blah,_ that's all you were saying. I bet your journal really _is_ full of bad poetry." She shrugged at him flippantly.

Cloud kicked his boot into the sand and emitted a low growl of frustration. "Talking to you is worse than talking to myself."

Yuffie pulled a dismayed face. "Hey, I'm not _that_ bad. I'm sure the voices in your head are a lot more horrible. At least, Tifa always said they were." Cloud's shoulders hunched over a little more, and Yuffie felt a twinge of sympathy for him. It was ruthlessly crushed. "You need to stop scowling so much," she told him simply.

"Why are we even friends?" Cloud muttered. It was something more of a rhetorical question to himself than to her, but Yuffie took it upon herself to answer him anyway. Maybe she hadn't managed to squelch that sympathy as completely as she'd hoped.

"Because I like you. You might be nuttier than a Chocobo-Nut-Bar, but I still think you're a good guy. Y'know, what with that saving the world and delivering the mail on time and all that stuff." She smiled at him. "Besides, even with that weapon of mass destruction that you call a hairstyle, I still think you're kinda cute." Cloud's look of surprise made her bite her tongue; maybe he didn't _really_ need to know that she also thought Vincent was kinda cute, Reeve was kinda cute, Reno was kinda cute and Barret was especially cute when he was wearing his sailor suit. Cloud had been "the unpopular kid" after all. She hid a smile.

"If you like me so much, why do you try to push my buttons every time we meet?" Cloud asked her. His expression was still mildly curious, but in real danger of sinking back into dead fish territory. Yuffie cleared her throat.

"I don't like dead fish."

"What?"

Obviously she needed to define her point more clearly. "I like it when you get mad. It makes you look hot. Well, hotter." That garnered an open stare, and Yuffie felt herself blushing. "What? It's not like I'm going to jump your bones," she added defensively. "I wouldn't go around shagging Tifa's guy behind her back!"

Cloud dropped his head with a groan. "I already told you, I'm not Tifa's guy."

Yuffie stopped. "You're really serious, aren't you," she said. His answer wasn't forthcoming, and his head remained bowed. And a myriad of pleasant possibilities were already beginning to blossom in Yuffie's mind. _Hmm._

"Well in that case!" she said cheerily. It was her only warning before she threw herself at him.


	6. Release

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And naturally, what would a porn fic be without the porn...

He was sitting there, quietly trying to assess the implications of what Yuffie had just made him admit - that it wasn't working between himself and Tifa, that he needed to end their relationship before he wound up hurting his best and only childhood friend - when his thoughts were derailed by a flailing mass of limbs that deposited itself in his lap.

There was no time to recover.  Cloud opened his mouth to protest, and it was immediately filled with a warm, darting and unexpectedly flexible tongue.  His first response was to try and jerk away - _worm breath_ \- but Yuffie was relentless.  She clung to him as though she were a parasite whose life depended on as much bodily contact as possible.  It almost felt like she was trying to suck the air right out of his lungs.  After a few moments of struggle, he managed to wrest her face away from his and push her shoulders back, though her legs were still firmly wrapped around his waist.

"Don't be a killjoy," she mumbled, nipping at his neck.

"Yuffie, what the hell are you doing?" Cloud yelped, and internally he winced.  His voice hadn't reached octaves this high since he'd had to wear that dress to get into Don Corneo's good graces.

"What's it feel like I'm doing?" she asked impudently, rolling her hips against his for emphasis and drawing another surprisingly unmanly squawk out of Cloud.

"It feels like you're taking what I said the wrong way!" he replied a little desperately.  This was because despite the blood, the guts, the annoying conversation and the fact that it was Yuffie, she still had her hips mashed up against his uncomfortably close, and it _had_ been a long time since his hips had lain against anything but Fenrir.

Ignoring his protests, Yuffie proceeded to lick her way up his neck, pausing only to spit out rough pieces of sand that her tongue picked up along the way.  "You said you're not with Tifa.  That means you're a free man," she told him reasonably.  "Don't blame me for taking advantage of the situation, you set this up."

"I did not mmfph!"  His protest was cut off as Yuffie decided to shut him up once more, her fingers clawing at the zipper of his jacket.  He always knew he should've stuck to buttons.  Then she freed her mouth from his and he gasped for air.  "Yuffie, you need to get off -" his sentence ended in an abrupt hiss as she yanked his jacket open and leaned down to lap a tongue over his nipple.  She lifted her head only once to hum her agreement.

"Yeah, it kinda feels like you need to, too."

Her hips were still wriggling furiously against his, and Cloud had his first real moment of weakness.   _Maybe I should just go along with this until she drops her guard enough to kick her away,_ he rationalized.  He felt her mouth moving on his chest, and the lick became a wet suckle.   _Maybe kicking her off isn't such a great idea after all,_ he thought.  His cock twitched in agreement.

"Mmm... hey, I felt that!  Not as stone cold as you want everyone to believe, huh?" Yuffie said, giving him a mischievous smile.

Cloud frowned at her.  "Yuffie, shut up," he growled.  Then he dipped his head down to enforce his demand.   _Wait, why am I encouraging her?_ he screamed at himself even as he allowed their kiss to deepen.  She shifted her thigh against his side, rubbing herself against the growing evidence of his arousal, and it was enough of an answer for him.  Knowing he was going to regret it in the morning, or even conceivably in fifteen minutes if she _didn't stop wiggling against him like that,_ he pushed his doubts away and committed himself to exploring the feel of her skin under his fingertips.

Yuffie broke away from him to gasp brokenly.  "Too many clothes," she mumbled into the leather of his open jacket.

Groaning in agreement, Cloud brusquely pushed her away from him, his hands snagging in the folds of her vest and ripping it away from her shoulders.  It was hard work, because Yuffie refused to back away from him, tearing at his jacket and then his shirt.  They broke apart, panting, when she managed to pull the fabric away from him completely, leaving his chest exposed to the cool night air.

"I want beer," Yuffie mumbled incoherently, her eyes glued to his abdomen.  Smirking, Cloud leaned forward a little and flexed, and her eyes grew rounder.  "Not fair," she whimpered as he closed the distance between them and undid the rest of the buttons on her shorts.   _Convenient of her to leave the top permanently undone,_ he thought as he tugged them off of her.  He stopped to admire her underwear; a periwinkle blue bikini bottom held together at the sides with a series of tiny yellow bows, with a pattern of fuzzy Chocobos adorning the fabric.  It was almost obscenely adolescent underwear.  It suited her perfectly.  What was catching his eye even more than her underwear, though, was the damp patch that was soaking through the front of the cloth.  Experimentally, he ran his fingers over the moist spot.  Yuffie fell still, gasping out a low moan as her fingers gripped at his hair.

"Cloud," she hissed, dropping her nose into his spikes of hair.  "Didn't know you were a tease!"

Cloud pulled his head up so quickly he almost knocked her nose.  "I'm not the one who started it," he groused at her, and with a grin she released his hair and rolled away.

He stared after her, the evening chill assaulting his bare chest as he rested on his knees and panted.  "What the hell's gotten into me?" he bit out as he watched Yuffie languorously pulling off her stretchy top.  Her breasts were pert enough so that she didn't require a bra; there'd definitely be no comparison to Tifa in that department.  Still, as he watched her rosy pink nipples pucker in the cool air, he couldn't say that found the sight disappointing.  Yuffie had a build like an athlete, all muscles and sinew and hard joints.  There was only the faint suggestion of curves to buffer her angular, boyish body; still, he felt his fingers twitching with the desire to ply what little pieces of femininity he could find, to see if he could bring her gangly limbs to tremble for him.

"Dunno... maybe worm guts are an aphrodisiac?" Yuffie offered, kicking off her boots and socks.  She paused, completely naked before him save for her ridiculous bowstring underwear, and leaned over to throw more fuel into the fire.  The angle that she had to reach left him with a delicious view of her ass as she reached forward, the small patch of wetness that his eyes had been glued teasing into view.

Cloud let out a low groan and surged forward.

"Whoa!  Hey, watch it!" Yuffie screeched, nearly pitching face-first into the fire as she felt his arms wrap around her waist and pull her backwards.  Her loud protest quickly turned into a muffled moan as he ground his hips against hers, forcing his straining erection against her buttocks.

He dug his fingers into the sides of her hips, forcing her downward and changing the angle so he could rub himself against her heat more fully.  Yuffie gasped and squirmed against him, even in this unwilling to let him gain the upper hand.  She managed to grab hold of his belt buckle and used it to lever herself around, deftly undoing the straps and quickly freeing his erection from its confinements.  The rapid movement of her fingers dusting lightly over his shaft nearly caused his arms to give way over her; he felt his eyes rolling back as she squeezed the drop of moisture leaking from the tip of his cock and smoothed it over the mound of his head.

With an inarticulate grunt, Cloud tore at her underwear, sending yellow bows flying in every direction, and immediately pushed his fingers against the pulsing flesh between her thighs.  She was warm and already soaking wet, and she clenched around his questing fingers almost greedily, a low moan tearing form her throat.

"Nothing to say?" he ground out against her ear, pushing his fingers slowly in and out of her, his thumb tracing slow circles around her clit.

"Nyuuuk," Yuffie managed to sigh, the sound coming out halfway between a moan and a gurgle.  Her thighs clenched around his moving hand, and she began to whimper almost incoherently as her eyelids fluttered.  Cloud was surprised to find that the sound was unexpectedly, disarmingly, almost inappropriately _cute,_ considering their state of dress and compromising position.

It was also turning him on.

Grunting with a sudden need, he pulled his hand back - eliciting another whimpered protest and then an angry (and even cuter) glare, but before she could open her mouth to complain, he sealed his own over her and positioned his cock at her entrance.  He could feel the heat and humidity radiating from her already, and shook with the effort of holding himself still.

Yuffie sighed impatiently against his lips; the whisper of her breath echoed through him like fire and broke the last, fine threads of his control.  With barely more than a grunt, Cloud plunged himself into her slick depths and choked at how tightly her body greeted him.  He let out a low, shaky exhale, surprised at the wet, soft heat the hard planes of her body were managing to produce.   _It's definitely been too long since I've done this,_ he thought to himself, if sex even with Yuffie could disarm him so completely.

Then she shifted her hips against him, grinding herself against him in a desperate, arrhythmic pattern that hinted of her own need.  If anything, he felt himself stiffening even more as he realized how much she wanted him.  He tried to thrust into her, eventually giving up and flipping her to the ground, holding her hips down when she refused to cooperate and kept up her own frantic, asynchronous motions that stymied his own attempts.

"Open your eyes, damn it!" Cloud ground out, holding himself still and waiting until Yuffie's head stopped turning and her dark eyes finally focused on him.  "For once -" he paused, punctuating each stop with a slow roll of his hips.  "- I want you -" another thrust, and she moaned softly "- to shut up -" beads of sweat rolled off of his brow as he tried to hold himself still "- and listen!"  Then, with a guttural groan, he released her, plunging himself into her depths with firm, deep strokes.

"Cloud!"  His name come tearing from her throat, breathy and light, and her knees curled around him tightly.  More than her knees.  Everything was curling around him tightly, and he could feel her clenching around him, reaching the brink of losing control, and he would too, if she didn't come soon -

"Say something," she was groaning, her head tossing back and forth as she rocked her hips desperately to meet his.  "Oh gawd, just say anything, please, I need - I need to hear -"

"Damn it, Yuffie, shut the fuck up!" Cloud grunted at her, distracted by the whine of her voice.  Then he bit back a gasp as he felt her response to his reprimand.  Apparently she liked being talked to, because he felt her fluttering, squeezing around his cock as she rode the waves of her own orgasm.

"God, you're so tight -" he managed to grit out before she pulled him over the edge with her, milking him dry.  He quivered, thrusting rapidly a few more times as he emptied himself, his buttocks clenching with the strain of it under the firm grip of her hands.

He collapsed against her, breathing heavily against her chest.  She was so thin and bony that it wasn't particularly comfortable, and when the black spots and stars finally faded from his vision, he forced himself to roll over.  His cock slid out of her with a wet plop, and he groaned slightly at the feeling of release.

It was several moments later before the enormity of what he'd just done finally percolated through Cloud's thoughts; _I just slept with Yuffie._  His eyes flew open and he turned to face her with a mixture of guilt, dismay and fury warring across his expression.

Her head was lolling back against the sand, her eyes closed.  A dreamy smile was floating across her face.

 

"Yuffie -" he bit out.

"Oh, shut up, it was good," she murmured sleepily, grabbing the nearest article of discarded clothing - which happened to be his overcoat - and lazily dragging it over her exposed body.  He watched her mutely, still caught up in the aftershock of having just had excellent sex, but _with Yuffie_.  She cracked an eye open, and after a moment of silent contemplation grunted and rolled towards him, tossing the overcoat over them both.  Then she snuggled her nose into the crook of his neck and let out a sleepy murmur.  "Just get some sleep, you retard.  We can do this again in the morning."  And she was snoring before he could formulate a coherent reply.


	7. The Logical Conclusion

When morning inevitably came, Cloud felt like shit. This was because the desert was pretty fucking cold, and the hours directly before sunrise were precisely when the temperatures reached their coldest. It was also the time when the fire had finally decided to sputter out. He noticed the cold most acutely, however, because there was no longer a warm body curled up by his side, sharing its heat with him.

She had been thoughtful enough to cover him with the rest of his discarded clothes so he wasn't completely exposed to the chill air, but there was no sign of her anywhere around their makeshift camp site.

As he dressed, he noticed with a sour lack of surprise that certain key elements of his travelling materia collection were missing. Nothing that would truly set him back - he was nearly rendered speechless to see she'd actually left the Knights alone - but more than one of his mastered All materia slots were distinctly empty. Well, she _had_ managed to get his pants off, so he guessed she'd earned those. His hands slowed as he considered the thought, pausing on the top button of his trousers.

She didn't _earn_ that materia, he decided suddenly. It would make everything that had happened last night sound uncomfortably too much like a trade. No, Cloud decided, she had _stolen_ his materia - _again_ \- and he was going to have to get it back. But first, his mission.

Fenrir was waiting for him where he'd left it, a little dirtier than usual but no worse for the wear. He noted with some surprise that Yuffie hadn't tried to crack open the storage case on the bike - maybe she was taking her promise not to steal his journal seriously for once. With a sigh, he swung a leg over the motorcycle and tested the engine - it sputtered once, twice, and then groaned to life just as the first rays of sunshine peeked over the horizon. Lowering his glasses, Cloud hunkered over the bike and set off in the direction of the Gold Saucer, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.

**.x.x.x.**

He found her in Event Square, casually seated on a bench and stuffing her face full of sugary donuts as the latest set of knights and dragons and damsels in distress battled it out on stage. Yuffie bit her lip and forced her eyes to remain fixed on the play, cheering when the dragon started making out passionately with the king while the stagehands groaned.

"Is that a guy under that costume...? No, I don't even want to know," Cloud said, wincing at the production before turning his attention to her.

Yuffie twisted in her seat uncomfortably and bit into her donut. He waited until she'd swallowed, and then opened his mouth -

"How'd you get back into the Saucer? I thought they kicked you out."

 _Oh. Was that all?_ Yuffie grinned reflexively in relief. "Aw, well, you know, it was just a couple of freakin' donuts. Besides, you really think they're gonna turn me away when I come bearing that much gil?" She carefully avoided mentioning _where_ she'd gotten her gil from, though she suspected Cloud already knew. It wasn't like he was going to miss that All materia anyhow, right?

"Technically speaking, that money was mine," Cloud said mildly. Then he snatched the remains of the donut out of her hand and popped it into his mouth. His eyes closed reflexively, and he let out a low sigh of relief that made her stomach flip-flop in recollection. "Oh yeah. You weren't lying, those are _really_ good."

"Worth getting kicked out of the Gold Saucer for, huh?" Yuffie said faintly, her cheeks still coloured with a blush. Her mind was racing; why wasn't Cloud being more of a bastard about that materia she'd stolen? He'd never been particularly nice about her thieving habits before. More importantly, was he going to say anything about what they'd done last night? Or how she'd left that morning?

In all honesty, she'd fled because she was scared. The pleasant languor of a post-coital nap had lulled her into a false sense of security, but as she'd woken in the early hours of the morning, prickles of cold creeping down her spine, the full weight of what she'd done had hit her like a two-ton Moogle.

 _He's gonna kill me_ had been her first thought as she watched his slack face, highlighted by the moonlight. Her next was a low smirk; she wouldn't necessarily mind being punished by Cloud as long as it involved copious amounts of sex. He'd been surprisingly good in that department, considering how stunted his conversational and emotional skills were in every other area. Then she'd realized that further sex, retaliatory or otherwise, was probably not going to be very high on Cloud's list of Things to Do. A list which probably featured Tifa in the number one spot.

So, Yuffie did the one thing that _she_ was best at - after throwing some cover on him and stoking the fire, she'd taken off at a run to return to the Gold Saucer. Dio had been sceptical about letting her back in at first, but a couple of carefully bartered pieces of mastered materia had quickly changed his mind. And this time, she'd made especially sure to secure herself a room and a meal before she set off to enjoy the wonders of the casino.

The entertainment was falling a bit flat, though. Most things tended to when paired off against the memory of a fantastic orgasm. So she'd planted herself in Event Square, determined to wallow in a bad play, good junk food, and a lot of pity and self-castigation. She figured it was the closest way to commune with Cloud. Well, second-closest way, she'd already tried the _closest_ way last night.

Reaching for another donut, she shovelled it into her mouth, trying now her hardest to tamp down on the blush she felt growing on her cheeks. White Roses of Wutai didn't blush no matter how badly they wanted to get back into Cloud Strife's pants. He was watching her eat, she realized, and she swallowed nervously, doing her best not to choke.

"So whatcha doin' here? You want me to pay you back?"

Cloud shrugged minutely. "I'm eating your donuts, aren't I?" he asked, reaching into the box on her lap to grab another one. Yuffie managed to still her startled twitch before she could drop it, and she looked up quickly to see if he'd noticed. His lips were twitching upward at the corners, and the expression in his eyes wasn't exactly on the _dead fish_ level, but she still couldn't read him.

She watched him for a while, but he said nothing, so after a moment of tense contemplation Yuffie shrugged and directed her attention back towards finishing her "meal." The play was long over, and the crowds had soon emptied from the amphitheatre, but neither moved to leave. Cloud would occasionally reach over and snitch another donut from her box, but for once, a rare, comfortable silence managed to settle between them. As the last donut disappeared, Yuffie smashed the box flat and casually tossed it behind her back.

"Well, that's that, I guess," she said airily. A sense of sweet resignation filled her; at least their roll-in-the-sand wouldn't be affecting their prickly friendship. If anything, it'd seemed to smooth over the rough edges. Still, it _had_ been really good sex... but all good things had to come to an end eventually.

"Is it?" Cloud asked absently, leaning back on his elbows and staring blankly at the vacant stage.

Yuffie grinned at him. "Yeah, it was good while it lasted... uh, _really_ good," she blushed, earning a curious glance from him, "...but I really didn't get all that much time off for my vacation, so I'll have to be getting back soon." She stood up and stretched, working the stiffness out of her knees and back. "And I guess you'd better get back to Tifa, too. More deliveries to make and all, right?"

Now his eyes were trained on the bare patch of skin exposed by her high-riding shirt, which conveniently happened to be at the same level as his eyes. Yuffie grinned as she pulled her arms over her head, giving him another gratuitous stretch for the road.

"I already told you, I'm not dating Tifa," Cloud said, his eyes not moving from her bellybutton. "Besides, the last time I was in Edge, I got this impression she was _spending time_ with Barret."

Yuffie bit her lip. She guessed it wasn't her place to tell him that Tifa, while waiting for Cloud to make up his mind about the status of their relationship, had been _spending time_ with Barret for the past two years. It was obvious that she'd never given up on Cloud, holding onto some last ditch hopes that the blond would one day come to his senses. Considering his soft spot for children and the fact that she'd all but adopted Marlene, however, Barret was practically in love with her despite that fact. Still, if there was something nobody ever wanted to see again, it was another emotionally castrated zombie-Cloud, roaming the world with the ability to potentially Omnislash anything that looked at him oddly, and so the issue had never been pressed.

The way Cloud was fixating on her stomach, though, was making Yuffie wonder if a little meddling was in order. "Hey, Spike, are you all there?" she asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

He caught it, his blue eyes finally lifting to meet her own. "I ask myself that all the time," he admitted with a wry grin. "Don't really know."

Yuffie's smile faltered from the intensity of his gaze. "Oh," she breathed. "Uh, alright, as long as we're clear on that." She moved to pull her hand from his grasp, and his grip tightened.

"You're really annoying, you know that?" Cloud said to her amicably, rubbing circles with his thumb into her wrist in a strikingly similar fashion to how he'd rubbed her the previous evening. Yuffie clenched her thighs together and smiled tightly.

"I can't stand talking to you. We always end up fighting about the most inane stuff." He was pulling her hand in now towards his mouth, and _oh gawd,_ what did he think he was doing? She'd never be able to make a clean break from him if he kept on looking at her like that.

"Plus you stole my materia, and you haven't really paid me back for that yet."

Yuffie swallowed. "I gave you my donuts," she countered weakly.

"You didn't even split them evenly," Cloud replied, bringing her fingers to his lips. His tongue snaked out, licking the remaining crystals of sugar away from them, and Yuffie felt her knees weakening as he swirled his lips around the soft pad of her index finger and gently sucked.

"Guh," she managed to say intelligibly when his mouth released her finger with a wet pop.

"... but I guess I could be convinced to live with that."

Yuffie blinked. _Wait, what?_ "... you wanna _date_ me?" she spluttered.

Cloud frowned. "No, I want to _fuck_ you," he clarified. "I thought we moved past that dating part last night." Yuffie made another incoherent squeak, and Cloud grinned at her. "Not much of a motor mouth anymore, are you?"

Flushing, Yuffie snatched her hand away from him and planted it on her hip. "We'll see about that, mister. If I recall correctly, I wasn't the one left drooling and cross-eyed last night!" she snapped.

"No, you were only drooling," he countered smoothly. "We'll have to work on that cross-eyed part."

Yuffie flushed again, her eyes sparkling. "Right now?" she asked.

"You have a room here?" At her quick nod, he grabbed her hand and stood up. "Good, I need a shower."

"It'll cost you," Yuffie warned as she allowed herself to be dragged towards the exit.

"No, it won't. It's my money," Cloud said without looking back.

"I was talking about sexual favours," Yuffie snipped, causing him to trip.

Cloud paused, then turned to her with a cocky grin. "... we can negotiate on that point."

The warmth in his eyes, the smile quirking around his lips, even if welcome, were completely unfamiliar to her. Yuffie realized belatedly that she could be in serious danger if he continued to drop his expressions so freely around her in the future. Her steps slowed uncertainly, and they came to a stop before the door.

Cloud turned around and regarded her. "Yuffie?" he asked quietly, sensing her hesitation.

Feeling uncharacteristically serious for once, Yuffie looked at their loosely joined hands. "Cloud... are you sure about this? I mean come on... we're like... I dunno, oil and water! We just don't mix!"

He stopped and looked at her. "I think you have it wrong," he finally said. "You and I, we're oil, and the rest of the world is water." His hand tightened on hers. "Maybe I don't want to mix. Do you?"

Yuffie stared at him, feeling an uncertain smile lifting the corners of her mouth _. Yep, that's a definite full red alert,_ she thought to herself. _Oh well. Never do anything half-assed, that's what Godo always said._ "Right!" she told him confidently, giving his hand a firm squeeze. Then she used her grip to pull him back and send him sprawling across the floor. "Last one to Ghost Square has to pay for the rest of our stay!" She was already sprinting out the door, not waiting to hear his reply.

Cloud lifted his head off of the floor - _damn it, was it actually sticky?_ \- and glared after the quickly retreating ninja. "Brat," he muttered under his breath. Pushing himself to his feet, he began to stroll after her with a small smirk. Well, like she'd said. He could always find creative ways to extract his revenge later.


End file.
